Archive for the 'Reeves Nelson' Tag Under 'UCLA' Category

Reeves Nelson, the former UCLA player who was booted from the team last season, has resurfaced on the Lakers' summer league team that begins play Friday in Las Vegas.

Nelson, a 6-foot-8 forward, played with a Lithuanian club team after his Bruins career went awry. He was dismissed in the midst of a second suspension by Coach Ben Howland because of his disruptive behavior.

Nelson will be joined on the Lakers team by Devin Ebanks, Christian Eyenga, Andrew Goudelock and Darius Morris, plus draft picks Darius Johnson-Odom from Marquette and Robert Sacre from Gonzaga.

An attorney for former UCLA all-conference forward Reeves Nelson has filed a defamation lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court against Sports Illustrated reporter George Dohrmannand Time Inc., the magazine's parent company.

In the suit, Keith A. Fink, Nelson's attorney, charges that Dohrmann made a series of false accusations against Nelson in a March 5, 2012 SI story that portrayed UCLA as a dysfunctional program under coach Ben Howland.

The filing contains sworn declarations from 18 of Nelson's former teammates refuting charges made in the SI piece.

Nelson was dismissed from the UCLA squad early last season after committing a series of team rules violations.

At the end of a long afternoon for UCLA in Tempe in late November 2010, I asked UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero what seemed like an obvious question. Obvious because 45 minutes earlier UCLA had blown an early lead before losing to Arizona State 55-24 dropping the Bruins to 4-7 on the season and 15-21 under Rick Neuheisel at that point.

Would Neuheisel definitely be back at UCLA in 2011, I asked Guerrero.

Guerrero was incredulous.

“Of course, there's never been any question of that,” Guerrero said in a hallway outside the Bruin locker-room. “There's no doubt. Why would you ask that question?”

UCLA held off a late run by Penn to post a 77-73 victory at Honda Center Saturday.

Bruin point guard Lazeric Jones pumped in 21 points and David Wear added his first double-double (11 points, 12 rebounds) as a Bruin as UCLA improved to 3-5. Penn dropped to 5-6 despite the perimeter shooting of Tyler Bernardini, who finished with a game-high 29 points, hitting 8-0f-12 3-p0int field goal attempts.

It was UCLA's first game without all-conference forward Reeves Nelson, who as dismissed on Friday.

Nelson had already been suspended indefinitely twice in less than a month this season.

With Friday's decision Howland sends packing the Bruins' leading scorer and rebounder from last season but a player who was also a major distraction as UCLA, the pre-season pick to win the Pac-12 title, got off to a 2-5 start.

While Nelson is finally gone there remains the question of how Howland handled his star forward, baggage and all.

UCLA's gifted but temperamental and enigmatic all-conference forward Reeves Nelson was permanently dismissed from the team on Friday by Bruin coach Ben Howland.

Nelson's dismissal comes four days after he was suspended for the second time in less than a month. Friday's decision ends a career in Westwood where Nelson's temper tantrums and lack of focus often overshadowed outstanding play on the court.

In the end Howland decided Nelson and the controversy surrounding him had become too big of a distraction for the program.

"I didn't want to turn this into a thing that this is the focus of UCLA basketball," said Howland, who added that he made the decision because he thought it was "in the best interest of the program, the team and UCLA basketball."

Bill Walton was the national player of the year, the biggest star on UCLA's defending national championship team, two points the Bruins' red-headed center reminded John Wooden of before practice one day when the coach pointed out that Walton's hair and unshaven face did not meet Wooden's standards.

Because of his stature as the college game's premier player, Walton said, Wooden didn't have the right to tell him how long he could wear his hair.

Wooden agreed.

"You're correct, I don't have that right," Wooden recalled telling Walton in a HBO documentary on the UCLA dynasty. "I just have the right to determine who's going to play and we're going to miss you and in about 15 minutes I'm not going to have you unless you go upstairs and get taken care of right away."

There are times when UCLA forward Reeves Nelson is the hardest working player on the court. Then there are times when, as Coach Ben Howland said, he shuts down.

“Sometimes Reeves — this is the first time I've seen this ever — sometimes when he has adversity he'll shut down and stop trying,” Howland said. “That is baffling. I've never seen that in anybody.”

Howland suspended Nelson for the second time in three weeks in response to his petulant behavior during the second half of UCLA's loss to Texas. Was Nelson checking out indicative of how dissatisfied he is at UCLA or simply the result of him being benched and bored? Perhaps it is somewhere in-between for the enigmatic Nelson.

Howland plans to meet with Nelson in a few days once he completes his final exams, a meeting in which UCLA's ninth-year coach said will be key in determining whether it is worth it or not to keep Nelson in the program.

“I want him to have some time away," said Howland, who described Nelson as reserved when they met Tuesday to discuss his suspension, this after being very apologetic when he initially suspended him in November. "It's a privilege and honor to be part of the UCLA basketball program.”

Coach Ben Howland's UCLA basketball team is 2-5. He's having just as tough a time playing one-on-one with Reeves Nelson.

Howland suspended the junior forward indefinitely Tuesday for the second time in three weeks. Nelson, who was benched during the second half of the Bruins' loss to Texas this past Saturday, could be seen laughing and pointing to people in the crowd as his team blew an 11-point lead.

“It was totally inappropriate,” Howland said. “There were a couple other things that occurred during the game that I spoke with him about that I'm not going to share that were very much inappropriate.

“This has been a very difficult thing for me and it's not fun. And it's not fun for our team. It's been very difficult. It's definitely a distraction. And we don't need any distractions.”

Howland said Nelson is unlikely to play in Saturday's game against Penn at Honda Center. He already missed one game earlier this season after Howland suspended him for behavioral misconduct and has started in just one of six contests. He's averaging 5.7 points and 4.5 rebounds, this after leading the team in scoring (13.9) in rebounding (9.1) last season while earning All-Pac-10 first-team honors.